“C.J. here,” she said. “Where on hell did you go?”
“Nothing serious, C.J. Just a dust tantrum. We’re too close to the Wall,” I said. “Is the camera back on?”
“Yes. I don’t see any dust.”
“We just caught the edge of it. It lasted about a minute. I’ve been spending the rest of the time trying to get the transmitter up and running.”
“It’s funny,” she said slowly, “how a minute’s worth of dust could do so much damage.”
“It’s one of the chips. You know how sensitive they are.”
“If they’re so sensitive, how come all that dust from the rover didn’t jam them?”
‘The rover?” I said, looking around blankly like one might drive up.
“When Evelyn drove out to meet you yesterday. How come the transmitter didn’t cut out then?”
Because I’d been too busy worrying about Wulfmeier and wrestling the binocs away from Bult to even think of it, I thought. I’d stood there coughing and choking in the rover’s dust and it hadn’t even crossed my mind. My shit, that was all we needed, for C.J. to catch on to our dust storms. “No accounting for technology,” I said, knowing she was never going to buy it. ‘Transmitter’s got a mind of its own.”
Carson came up. “You talking to C.J.? Ask her if she’s got an aerial of the Wall along here. I want to know where the breaks are.”
“Sure,” I said, and hit disconnect again. “We got a problem. C.J.’s asking questions about the dust storm. She wants to know why the transmitter didn’t go out with all that dust from the rover.”
“The rover?” he said, and I could see it dawn on him like it had on me. “What did you tell her?”
“That the transmitter’s temperamental.”
“She’ll never buy that,” he said, glaring at Ev, who was watching the shuttlewren start another lap. “I told you he’d cause trouble.”
“It’s not Ev’s fault. We’re the ones who didn’t have sense enough to recognize a dust storm when we saw it. I’m going back on. What do I tell her?”
“That it’s dust getting in the chip that does it,” he said, stomping back to his pony, “not just dust in the air.”
Which maybe would have worked, except two expeditions ago I’d told her it was dust in the air that did it.
“Come on, Ev,” I said. He came over and got on his pony, still watching the shuttlewren. I took my finger off the disconnect. “—ase, come in, Home Base.”
“Another dust storm?” C.J. said sarcastically.
“There must still be some dust in the chip,” I said. “It keeps cutting out.”
“How come the sound cuts out at the same time?” she said.
Because we’re still wearing our mikes too high, I thought.
“It’s runny,” she went on. “While you were out, I took a look at the meteorologicals Carson ran before you left. They don’t show any wind for that sector.”
“No accounting for the weather either, especially this close to the Wall,” I said. “Ev’s right here. You want to talk to him?”
I patched him in before she could answer, thinking sex wasn’t always such a bad thing on an expedition. It would take her mind off the dust anyway.
Bult and Carson rode in a wide circle around us to get in the lead again, and we followed, Ev still talking to C.J., which mostly consisted of listening and saying “yes” every once in a while, and “I promise.” The shuttlewren followed us, too, making the circuit back and forth like a sheep dog.
“What land of nests do the shuttlewrens have?” Ev asked.
“We’ve never seen them,” I said. “What did C.J. have to say?”
“Not much. Their nests are probably in this area,” he said, looking across the Tongue. The Wall was almost up next to the bank, and there were a few scourbrush in the narrow space between, but nothing that looked big enough to hide a nest. “The behavior they’re exhibiting is either protective, in which case it’s a female, or territorial, in which case it’s a male. You say they’ve followed you for long distances. Have you ever been followed by more than one at a time?”
“No,” I said. “Sometimes one’ll fall away and another one’ll take over, like they’re working in shifts.”
“That sounds like territorial behavior,” he said, watching the shuttlewren make the turn past Bult. It was flying so low it brushed Bult’s umbrella, and he looked up and then hunched over his fines again. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to get a specimen?”
“Not unless it has a coronary,” I said, ducking as it skimmed my hat. “We’ve got holos. You can ask the memory.”
He did, and spent the next ten minutes poring over them while I worried about C.J. We’d talked her into believing the transmitter could be taken out by a gust of dust that wouldn’t even show on the log, and then I’d stood there yesterday and let the transmitter get totally smothered with it and hadn’t even had the sense to disconnect.
And now that she was suspicious, she wouldn’t let it go. She was probably checking all the logs for dust storms right now and comparing them to the meteorologicals.
Bult and Carson were looking in the water again. Bult shook his head.
“The staking out of territory is a courtship ritual,” Ev said.
“Like gangs,” I said.
“The male butterfish sweeps an area of ocean bottom clear of pebbles and shells for the female and then circles it constantly.”
I looked at the shuttlewren, which was rounding Bult’s umbrella again. Bult put down his log and collapsed the umbrella.
“The Mirgasazi on Yoan stake out a block of airspace. They’re an interesting species. Some of the females have bright feathers, but they’re not the ones the males are interested in.”
The shuttlewren flapped past us and up to Bult and Carson again. It rounded the bend, and Bult shot his umbrella open. The shuttlewren fell in midflap, and Bult stabbed it with the tip of the umbrella a couple of times.
“I knew I should have put umbrellas on the weapons list,” I said.
“Can I have it?” Ev said. To see if it’s a male?”
Bult unfolded his arm, picked up the shuttlewren, and rode on, plucking the feathers off it When he had half of them off, he stuck the shuttlewren in his mouth and bit it in half. He offered Carson half. Carson shook his head, and Bult crammed the whole thing in.
“Guess not,” I said. I leaned down and got a feather and handed it to him.
He was watching Bult chew. “Shouldn’t there be a fine for that?” he said.
“All members of the expedition shall refrain from making value judgments regarding the indigenous sentients’ ancient and noble culture,’” I said.
I picked up the pieces Bult spit out, which didn’t amount to much, and gave ‘em to Ev. And looked off at the horizon.
The Wall curved back away from the Tongue and out across the plain in a straight line. Beyond it there was a scattering of scourbrush and trees. There wasn’t any wind, the leaves were hanging limp. What we needed was a good dust storm to throw C.J. off, but there wasn’t so much as a breeze.
It wasn’t C.J.’s figuring the dust storms out that worried me. She’d try to blackmail us into naming something after her, but she’d been doing that for years. But I didn’t want her talking about it over the transmitter for Big Brother to hear. If they started looking at the log, they’d be able to see for themselves. There was no way there’d been a dust tantrum in this weather. There wasn’t even any air. The feathers Bult was spitting out up ahead fell straight down.
Half a klom later we ran into a dust tantrum that was more like a full-blown rage. It got in the transmitter (but not before we’d gotten a full five minutes of it on the log), and up our noses and down our throats, and made it so dark we had to navigate by following the lights on Bult’s umbrella.
By the time we got clear of it, it was getting dark for real, and Bult started looking for a good place to camp, which meant someplace knee-deep in flora so he could get t
he maximum in fines out of us. Carson wanted to get across the Tongue first, but Bult peered solemnly into the water and pronounced tssi mitsse, and while Carson was yelling, “Where? I don’t see a damn thing!” the ponies started to sway, so we camped where we were.
We set up camp in a hurry, first because we didn’t want to have to unload the ponies after they were down, and then because we didn’t want to be stumbling around in the dark, but all three of Boohte’s moons were up before we got the transmitter unloaded.
Carson went off to tie the ponies up downwind, and Ev helped me spread out the bedrolls.
“Are we in uncharted territory?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said, shaking the dust out of my bedroll. “Unless you count what’s on us.” I spread the bedroll out, making sure it wasn’t on any flora. “Speaking of which, I’d better go call C.J. and tell her where we are.” I handed Carson’s bedroll to him and started over to the transmitter.
“Wait,” he said.
I stopped and turned back to look at him.
“When I talked to C.J., she wanted to know why the dust tantrum hadn’t shown up on the log.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I said it came in at an angle and blindsided us. I said it blew up so fast I didn’t even see it till you shouted, and by that time we were in the middle of it.”
I told Carson he was smarter than he looked, I thought.
“How come you did that?” I said. “C.J.’d probably give you a free jump for telling her we blew up that storm ourselves.”
“Are you kidding?” he said, looking so surprised I was sorry I’d said it. Of course he wouldn’t betray us. We were Findriddy and Carson, the famous explorers who could do no wrong, even if he’d just caught us red-handed.
“Well, thanks,” I said and wondered exactly how smart he was and what explanation I could get away with. “Carson and I had things we needed to discuss, and we didn’t want Big Brother listening.”
“It’s a gatecrasher, isn’t it? That’s why the expedition left in such a hurry and why you keep running whereabouts when there isn’t supposed to be anybody but us on the planet. You think somebody’s illegally opened a gate. Is that why Bult’s leading us south, to try to keep us from catching him?”
“I don’t know what Bult’s doing,” I said. “He could have kept us away from a gatecrasher by crossing where we were this morning and leading us up along the Wall past Silvershim Creek. He didn’t have to drag us clear down here. Besides,” I said, looking at Bult, who was down by the Tongue with Carson and the ponies, “he doesn’t like Wulfmeier. Why would he try to protect him?”
“Wulfmeier?” Ev said, sounding excited. “Is that who it is?”
“You know Wulfmeier?”
“Of course. From the pop-ups,” he said.
Well, I should have known.
“What do you think he’s doing?” Ev said. “Trading with the indigenous sentients? Mining?”
“I don’t think he’s doing anything. I got a verify this morning that he’s on Starting Gate.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed. In the pop-ups we must have gone after gatecrashers with lasers blasting. “But you want to go there just to make sure?”
“If Bult ever lets us cross the Tongue,” I said.
Carson came stomping up. “I ask Bult if it’s safe to water the ponies, and he pretends to look in the water and says, ‘tssi mitss nah,’ so I say, ‘Well, fine, since there aren’t any tssi mitss, we can cross first thing in the morning,’ and he hands me a pair of dice and says, ‘Sahthh. Brik lilla fahr.’” He squatted down and rummaged in his pack. “My shit, ‘lilla fahr’ is practically in the Ponypiles.” He glared at the mountains. “What on hell is he up to? And don’t give me that stuff about fines.” He pulled out the water analysis kit and straightened up. “He’s got enough already to buy himself a different planet. Fin, did you get that aerial of the Wall from C.J. yet?”
“I was just calling her,” I said. He stomped off, and I went over to the transmitter.
“What can I do?” Ev said, tagging after me like a shuttlewren. “Should I gather some wood for a fire?”
I looked at him.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, catching my expression. “There’s a fine for gathering wood.”
“And starting a fire with advanced technology, and burning indigenous flora,” I said. “We usually try to wait till Bult gets cold and builds one.”
Bult didn’t show any signs of getting cold, even though the wind over the Ponypiles that had sent that dust tantrum into us had a chill to it, and after supper he gave Carson some more dice and then went off and sat under his umbrella out by the ponies.
“What on hell’s he doing now?” Carson said.
“He probably went to get the battery-powered heater he bought last expedition,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Tell us some more about mating customs, Ev. Maybe a little sex’ll warm us up.”
“Speaking of which, Evie, have you figured out which brand Bult is yet?” Carson said.
As near as I could tell, Ev hadn’t so much as looked at Bult since we started, except when Bult was snacking on the shuttlewren, but he spoke right up.
“Male,” he said.
“How do you figure that?” Carson said, and I was wondering, too. If it was table manners he was going by, that wasn’t any sign. Every indidge I’d seen ate like that, and most of them didn’t bother about taking the feathers off first.
“His acquisitive behavior,” Ev said. “Collecting and hoarding property is a typical male courtship behavior.”
“I thought collecting stuff was a female behavior,” I said. “What about all those diamonds and monograms?”
“Gifts the male gives to the female are symbols of the male’s ability to amass and defend wealth or territory,” Ev said. “By collecting fines and purchasing manufactured goods, Bult is demonstrating his ability to gain access to the resources necessary for survival.”
“Shower curtains?” I said.
“Utility isn’t the issue. The male burin fish collects large quantities of black rock clams, which are of no practical value, since the burin fish only eats flora, and piles them into towers as part of the courtship ritual.”
“And that impresses the female?” I said.
“Ability to amass wealth is indicative of the genetic superiority of the male, and therefore the increased chance of survival for her offspring. Of course she’s impressed. There are other qualities that impress her, too. Size, strength, the ability to defend territory, like that shuttlewren we saw this afternoon—”
Which the female shuttlewrens probably hadn’t been very impressed with, I thought.
”—virility, youth—”
Carson said, “You mean we’re here freezing our hind ends off because Bult’s trying to impress some female?” He stood up. “I told you sex can louse up an expedition faster than anything else.” He grabbed up the lantern. “I’m not gonna end up with frostbite just because Bult wants to show his genes to some damn female.”
He went stomping off into the dark, and I watched the bobbing lantern, wondering what had gotten into him all of a sudden and why Bult wasn’t following him with his log if what Ev said was true. Bult was still sitting out by the ponies—I could see the lights on his umbrella.
“The indigenous sentients on Prii built bonfires as part of their courtship ritual,” Ev said, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “They’re extinct. They burned down every forest on Prii in less than five hundred years time.” He tipped his head back and looked at the sky. “I still can’t believe how beautiful everything is.
It was presentable-looking. There were a bunch of stars, and the three moons were jostling for position in the middle of the sky. But my teeth were chattering, and there was a strong whiff of ponypile from downwind.
“What are the names of the moons?” he said.
“Larry, Curly, and Moe,” I said.
“No, really. What are the B
oohteri names?”
“They don’t have names for them. Don’t get any idea of naming one after C.J., though. They’re Satellite One, Two, and Three until Big Brother surveys them, which it won’t anytime soon since the Boohteri won’t agree to satellite surveys.”
“C.J.?” he said, like he’d forgotten who she was. ‘They don’t look anything like they did on the pop-ups. Nothing on Boohte has, except you. You look exactly like I thought you would.”
These pop-ups you’re always talking about? What are they? Holo books?”
“DHVs.” He got up, went over to this bedroll, and squatted down to get something out from under it. He came back, holding a flat square the size of a playing card, and sat down beside me.
“See?” he said and opened the flat card up like a book. “Episode Six,” he said.
Pop-ups was a good name for them. The picture seemed to jump out of the middle of the card and into the space between us, like the map back at King’s X, only this was full-size and the people were moving and talking.
There was a presentable-looking female standing next to a horse made up to be a pony and a squatty pink thing like a cross between an accordion and a fireplug. They were having an argument.
“He’s been gone too long,” the female said. She had on tight pants and a low-slung shirt, and her hair was long and shiny. “I’m going to go find him.”
“It’s been nearly twenty hours,” the accordion said. “We must report in to Home Base.”
“I’m not leaving here without him,” the female said, and swung up on the horse and galloped away.
“Wait!” the accordion shouted. “You can’t! It’s too dangerous!”
“Who’s that supposed to be?” I said, sticking my finger into the accordion.
“Stop,” Ev said, and the scene froze. “That’s Bult.” “Where’s his log?” I said.
“I told you things were different from what I’d expected,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “Go back.”
There was a flicker, and we were back at the beginning of the scene.
“He’s been gone too long!” Tight Pants said.
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